Re: Mark VII Monorails Information/Tracker Thread

Ask the people who paid big bucks to stay at the Disneyland Hotel. When they want to hit the pools to escape the afternoon heat, they have to hike all the way back to their rooms.

As someone who stays at the Disneyland Hotel I agree. And this is a selling point of the Disneyland hotel.

Originally Posted by Tomorrowland_1967

I say ....
it's time to suck up to the fact they need to upgrade the electrical grid so the monorails have the necessary electricity for A/C - period!

This should have been done along time ago. I am wondering if this is the reason that so many of the rides have problems is that Disneyland is operating on a grid that needs an upgrade not just the monorail grid.

Re: Mark VII Monorails Information/Tracker Thread

Ask the people who paid big bucks to stay at the Disneyland Hotel. When they want to hit the pools to escape the afternoon heat, they have to hike all the way back to their rooms.

I don't know if anyone else has made this observation on MiceChat...but the new tram station in Simba is right by the Paradise Pier Hotel and the DL hotel, where the overflow parking for DTD has been. I wonder if adding the tram route back to Simba is also about moving hotel guests to the parks, as well as day guests parking in Simba.

Personally, I hope they add toll booths (or use the current DTD booths) so you can drive directly to Simba the way you can drive directly to M&F.

"Once upon a time there was a Magic Kingdom
made of hopes and childhood fantasies
A timeless place where every land was filled with wonder
A place where everyone who enters its gates will be given the gift of the
Young at Heart"

Re: Mark VII Monorails Information/Tracker Thread

Originally Posted by Young at Heart

Personally, I hope they add toll booths (or use the current DTD booths) so you can drive directly to Simba the way you can drive directly to M&F.

Alas, that won't happen, as the city would require a large area prior to the Toll Booths, to remove trafffic from city streets. For the forseeable future, the only way to access Simba for Theme Park Parking will be Harbor Boulevard, which is the main entrance for those going Northbound on I-5 (Coming from San Diego). Of course, the Parking Structure is the main lot for Southbound I-5 vehicles coming from the LA area.

Re: Mark VII Monorails Information/Tracker Thread

Monorail LemonBut the mistakes made with the Barbeque pale in comparison to the biggest headache in recent Disneyland history, the Mark VII Monorails. The new fleet was heralded as a long overdue refurbishment of the first daily operating monorail in America. The Mark VII trains were going to be vehicles that would bring glamour and excitement back to the Disneyland icon. But the reality for the park has been somewhat like discovering your new car is a lemon, and after your seventh trip to the dealership you realize the warranty department is closed and no one will return your calls.

Only the posters work

WDI, who designed the new monorails but then contracted out a foundry up in British Columbia to assemble them, has basically washed their hands of the whole mess. It's now up to the Disneyland Facilities department to try and fabricate replacement parts and redesign the windows, vents and drive system elements that never worked to begin with or have already failed. That now leaves Disneyland with a ragtag fleet of half-working monorails, one of which can't operate at all, and two trains that can't operate in varying degrees of heat.
This weekend when the weather warmed up there were hours at a time when the Disneyland Monorail system was simply shut down entirely, leaving the hotel guests who paid big bucks with the expectation of taking the monorail back to the room having to walk the entire way from Tomorrowland to the Disneyland Hotel. That walk can easily be twice as long as the walk from Tomorrowland to the cheaper hotels on Harbor Blvd., and you can bet the hotel's desk clerks got an earful from the tired guests.

Elvis and Walt are seen more often

What's the solution? Now that WDI and the manufacturers have basically abandoned the project and left their lawyers to squabble over the details, the park is trying to regroup and figure out what parts it needs to fabricate or order to get at least two of the trains ready for minimal service this summer.
They may be pretty, but the Mark VII trains are now synonymous with an infamous process where WDI designers don't look to decades of operational experience in the parks when it comes to designing vehicles that work for the people operating them, maintaining them, or riding in them.

Re: Mark VII Monorails Information/Tracker Thread

Originally Posted by Darkbeer

Yesterday the Monorail was closed the vast majority of the day, as Orange was down, and it was too hot for Blue to run...

What a MESS!!!

What's amazing is, that after all this time, it appears there's STILL no real plan of action to fix these. Yes, they've tested windows and vents that do this, and windows and vents that do that, but that's not going to solve this mess. Who would have thought Monorail Orange would have come "out of the barn" without at least an attempt at a design change.

That's progress Disney-style...take four monorails that work, and replace them with three that don't.

Re: Mark VII Monorails Information/Tracker Thread

I was at the park this past weekend and both Blue and Orange were out all three days in the morning ad afternoon, but on Sunday blue pulled into the station and was taken out of service due to "Scrapping Paint" cast members said they could see where paint had been scrapped off. It was along wait until they could get blue off and Orange doing all the service.